Life + Faith

Author: Jon

  • The Joys and Challenges of Sending

    The Joys and Challenges of Sending

    When I think of partnership, my mind always drifts towards Paul’s words in Philippians 1:3-5, 

    “I thank my God every time I remember you… because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”

    It’s a great line, isn’t it? It’s more than a thank you, it’s a picture of what it looks like when a local church embraces its role in God’s mission. It’s not just cheering others on from the sidelines, but it’s partnering meaningfully with those called to take the good news of Jesus across cultures and borders. 

    At our church here in Mooroolbark, we’ve had the privilege of sending people we know and love to serve cross-culturally. It’s not a long list, and we’re not a big church. Not that size is the measure anyway. But what’s mattered most is the posture we’ve taken. A posture of sending, of being open to God’s leading and being partners in the gospel together. 

    The Joys

    Watching someone within the life of the church respond to God’s call into mission is a beautiful thing. To see them grow in faith, serve in ministry, walk with others, and begin to sense God’s leading somewhere new is exciting. It’s exciting for them, and it’s exciting for the church. It doesn’t happen quickly–in fact, it can be awfully slow. But when that conviction settles and through discernment it is affirmed there is a great sense of God at work. You end up realising that this is why the Church exists.  

    We’ve had the joy of commissioning services, which are rich in meaning and prayer. The laying on of hands, the setting apart, and the committing those called to the Lord. These are services that energise the church as people rally around them, offering financial support, practical help, consistent prayer, and just good encouragement. 

    It’s also encouraging to see the impact that mission updates have on others. Whether it’s stories of discipleship, translation, medical work, or leadership development, it all reminds us that we’re part of something bigger. It lifts our eyes beyond the immediate and makes our hearts swell. 

    Then, perhaps not thought of as often as we should, is the encouragement of seeing the growth in those we send. There’s a deepening of faith, a maturing of character, and a greater sense of hope in God. The way God shapes those on the field is a sight to see. They don’t just go to give and serve, but they go and are formed, too. And this is a blessing for all involved. 

    The Challenges

    Of course, sending is not without its challenges. The hardest part is often saying goodbye. Those sent are usually not just any member of the church, they’re often those who are deeply involved in the life of the community. This is certainly true in my experience. They lead small groups, mentor others, serve in different capacities, and then suddenly there’s a gap. The church can’t help but feel it. 

    There is the challenge of distance too. Supporting people well from the other side of the world isn’t exactly a straightforward task. There’s the practical reality that we can’t always help in hands-on ways. We must be intentional to keep connection, to communicate regularly, and stay informed and prayerful as the needs arise. As the saying goes, “out of sight, out of mind”, can be true in our churches as well as our personal lives. Wrestling with those questions of how partnership works, between the church, the missionaries, and the mission agencies, is key. How do we stay involved without overstepping? Who takes the lead in care, and in what ways? All these tensions are good and right, but tensions all the same. 

    And like many churches, we rely on a volunteer team to keep our missionary support active and present. They pray faithfully, with love and care, but as the needs of missionaries become more complex (especially around member care and logistics), there can be a stretch. There’s more to support than a few emails, an occasional gift, and financial contributions, but how do we do it well? It isn’t always obvious. 

    The Posture of Sending

    Through these things, the practicalities and the questions, we’re learning what it means to have a sending posture. This isn’t about an occasional project, it’s a long-term commitment that is shaped by the Great Commission, those words of Jesus himself in Matthew 28:19-20:

    “Go and make disciples of all nations… and surely I am with you always.”

    We want to respond to this call as a church, not only by going but by sending. We go into our neighbourhoods, schools, workplaces, sporting clubs, and families but we also go into the wider world. And we do so trusting that the Lord of the harvest is still calling, still sending, and still doing more than we could ask or imagine. 

    Sending missionaries isn’t easy. But it’s worth it. It reminds us that the gospel is good news for all people, everywhere. 

    And we get to be part of it.

  • Do You Do A Mid-Year Reflection? 

    Do You Do A Mid-Year Reflection? 

    It’s that time here in Melbourne where the days are cold and fresh and we come to the halfway mark of the year. 

    I’m not sure about you but I long to be somewhere warm about now. The kids have just gone on school holidays, there will be more family time and unstructured time in the home. Friends have disappeared up north to get a dose of sun for the week, and most of the regular life programming has taken a pause. It is usually the case that after our summer break we walk back into life with a pep in our step but we are far removed from January energy. As we mark the midpoint of the year that pep might have gone by the wayside and we are simply trying to put one foot in front of the other. 

    In recent years, with all this in mind, I’ve taken time to intentionally reflect on the first half of the year. I love the book of Proverbs, and don’t dip into it nearly enough, but it has a couple of gems for us in terms of being reflective people. In Proverbs 4:26 we read, 

    “Carefully consider the path for your feet, and all your ways will be established.” 

    And then in Proverbs 14:8 is says, 

    “The sensible person’s wisdom is to consider his way, but the stupidity of fools deceives them.”

    Both these proverbs encourage us to be self-aware and reflective people, teaching us that it is discerning and wise to do so. 

    Becoming this kind of person doesn’t happen naturally either. It is not really in our nature to stop, think, be intentional, and reflective of our lives. More often than not we bumble along trying to keep up with whatever responsibilities we have before us, some simply day by day. And so being intentional in this way is a form of discipline. We discipline ourselves to stop, to think, to be reflective as to what is going on inside and around us. We do so in order to observe what God has been doing in our lives and where he might be leading us. 

    In seeking to do this in my life I work through 10 short questions, giving dot point answers to each of them, as an exercise in reflection. I’ve only just done it again for this year, and have found it really helpful. I share the questions below and pray they will be useful to you as well. 

    All the best, and my prayers are with you, as you consider the path of your feet and the way you have walked this year. May it be an encouragement to you. 

    Mid-Year Reflection Questions:

    1. What are the most important events that have happened to me, or in me, this past 6 months?
    2. What are the greatest breakthroughs in any category of my life this past 6 months (physically, emotionally, relationally, vocationally, spiritually, with other people, etc.)?
    3. What has been the greatest struggle in my life this past 6 months?
    4. What has been the greatest, and deepest, loss this past 6 months?
    5. What was the area that has consumed my thinking, attention, and focus this past 6 months (health, relationship, future, etc.)? 
    6. Where have I felt most vulnerable in my life?
    7. Where have I most experienced the presence of God this past 6 months and why?
    8. In the past six months, where have I experienced the greatest sense of consolation (peace, contentment, shalom, beauty, etc.)?
    9. In the past six months, what area of my life has given me the most desolation (pre-occupation, depression, anxiety, etc.)?             
    10. What is ONE word that would begin to sum up this past 6 months?
  • The Scandal of Grace

    The Scandal of Grace

    Scandals are usually thought of in negative terms like the sports star who is caught out or the celebrity news on the gossip pages. It’s negative, possibly something immoral to the world, and breaks the internet for a day or two. 

    In preaching through the book of Jonah recently I’ve continued to have it pressed home to me just how scandalous the grace of God is. God’s free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ offered to all who receive it is a scandal. Scandalous. It sounds odd to hear as we never name it as such, but it really is. 

    In Jonah 4 we find the prophet outside the city of Nineveh, sitting at a lookout point, watching and hoping that God will bring fire and sulphur down on this city like he did on Sodom and Gomorrah. Jonah has just preached his short, reluctant sermon to the Ninevites, seen an entire city turn from its evil ways, and watched God relent from the judgement they deserved.

    But Jonah is furious. He’s so angry. You’d think he’d be happy, after all, he is a missionary! 

    He says to God in verse 2, 

    “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”

    Jonah knows exactly who God is. He knows his character and he has experienced the breadth and depth of that tender mercy of God himself. He was rescued from drowning, delivered from the belly of a fish, and given a second chance when he had run as far as he could in the opposite direction. God showed grace to Jonah, and ironically, when that same grace is extended to Nineveh he cannot bear it. 

    It’s a reaction we might understand ourselves. The Ninevites weren’t just a bunch of foreigners Jonah happened to dislike. These were the Nazis, the al-Qaeda, the ISIS of the ancient world. The Assyrians were vicious, brutal, and violent. They had God’s people in their sights and everyone knew it. Within a generation they would conquer the northern tribes of Israel (2 Kings 17:6). Jonah knew what these people were capable of and he seemed to know what was coming.

    Yet, God showed them grace anyway.

    This is the scandal.

    This event and the story of Jonah asks a question of us, it turns the mirror toward us and asks, “How far does our love and grace really extend?”

    Perhaps as an illustration we might think of that Navy Seal team who was brought together to take out Osama bin Laden all those years ago. Let’s imagine that instead of this team the US President sent a crack evangelist team to convert him. And in so doing they didn’t kill him, but they reached him with the good news of Jesus. Let’s say he repented, placed his faith in Jesus, and became part of God’s family. 

    How are you going to respond to that? 

    If you feel a twinge of discomfort, anger even, while reading that then you know exactly how Jonah felt sitting outside Nineveh.  

    The scandal of grace is that God’s compassion and mercy is open to the most ghastly serial killer, the most despised paedophile, the rapist, the war criminal, the dictator, the murderer. If I’m honest, there’s a part of me that is angry at God right now, just like Jonah. It’s not fair. It doesn’t feel fair to respond to such evil and wrongdoing with grace. It’s outrageous. My human understanding struggles to believe this.

    Alongside this scandal of grace we also need to hold onto something. God is not letting anyone off the hook. He is not being unjust. In fact, in order to even offer this grace, God provided his Son Jesus Christ as the one who absorbed the full force of the justice and judgement that is rightfully deserved by all who have sinned, all who have done evil, all who have broken God’s law and God’s ways (Isaiah 53:5; Romans 5:8). Every murderer and rapist, every liar and adulterer, every person consumed by anger or greed or pride — the judgement they deserve was placed on Jesus where God dealt with evil fully and finally at the cross.

    It is at the cross where the grace is offered and it is at the cross where it remains. This isn’t cheap grace. It’s not grace that ignores wrongdoing. But it is costly, blood-bought grace that has dealt with sin at its epicentre and is now extended by invitation to all people everywhere.

    This is why we call it amazing grace. This is why I’m calling it scandalous grace. 

    God’s final question to Jonah, “Should I not have concern for this great city?”, is a question that exposes the limits we place on grace. It exposes the idols we carry in our hearts. It is that attitude of silently deciding others don’t deserve it. 

    In Luke 15 Jesus tells a story along similar lines. A father opens his arms and offers grace to a son who has wasted everything. Standing outside the celebration, unwilling to go in, is the elder brother who has been faithful and dutiful all his life. And there he stands furious that grace has been shown to someone who in his view simply doesn’t deserve it. The father comes out to him and says: everything I have is yours, but one who was lost has been found. 

    Like the book of Jonah, the parable of the Prodigal Son ends without answer. The scandal of grace toward the Ninevites and the younger brother is the same grace that God gifts us and is ours to receive. His arms are wide open. 

    The mirror has turned toward us, and the question remains, “How far does our love and grace really extend?”

    More Than: A Series in Jonah
    Part 1: More Than A Mission You Can Refuse
    Part 2: More Than Running Away
    Part 3: More Than A Prayer
    Part 4: More Than A Second Chance
    Part 5: More Than Anger
    Related: The Scandal of Grace

  • More Than Anger

    More Than Anger

    What do you get angry about?

    Is it after hearing the news of the day and all that is going on in our world? Is it while driving and you must let other road users know about it? Is it when your footy team loses or circumstance or other people?

    Jonah has just watched the entire city of Ninevah repent. As a result God relents from the judgements he planned and Jonah is so angry about it.

    You’d think he’d be pleased, wouldn’t you? It’s a successful ministry in my book, a whole city turning away from evil and toward God! Yet, Jonah is angry. Very angry.

    In Jonah 4:1-2, we read:

    But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD, ‘Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.’

    This book is full of irony, and here is a great example of it again. Jonah wasn’t running away from God the first time because he was worried he would fail, he was running away because of his fear of success! He knew God was merciful, but he did not want Ninevah to receive that mercy.

    Jonah goes and sits outside the city and again God provides for him, this time in the form of a plant. It gives shade to Jonah and he is well pleased. God then provides a worm and the plant withers and Jonah’s ridiculous response is again anger, so much so that he wants to die all over a plant!

    So, God asks him a question to try and get some sense into him. God asks,

    “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

    “It is,” says Jonah. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

    God’s response to Jonah is gentle but it cuts to the heart of the irony and what’s going on here. Jonah cared about the plant, which he neither planted or looked after, which appeared and then disappeared. Should God not care then for a city of 120,000 people!?

    We aren’t told Jonah’s response. Perhaps he didn’t have an answer. The book ends here and there is no resolution to the question. What we’re left with is that question hanging, which is addressed to us just as much as it is to Jonah.

    Are we genuinely concerned for the people God is concerned for? Or are we more invested in our own comfort, our own shade, than in the mercy God extends to others?

    The anger we hold reveals what we value. Jonah’s anger revealed his heart shaped by nationalistic pride than divine compassion.

    The question for us is whether our hearts look more like God’s or more like Jonah’s.

    I unpack this question further in The Scandal of Grace.

    For Reflection:

    1.     What does your anger tend to reveal about what you truly value? Is there a place where your priorities need to align more closely with God’s?

    2.     Is there a group of people that you find it difficult to want God’s mercy for? What might it look like to bring that before Him?

    More Than: A Series in Jonah
    Part 1: More Than A Mission You Can Refuse
    Part 2: More Than Running Away
    Part 3: More Than A Prayer
    Part 4: More Than A Second Chance
    Part 5: More Than Anger
    Related: The Scandal of Grace

  • More Than A Second Chance

    More Than A Second Chance

    “Can I have another go?” is an often-used phrase in our house when we’re playing games. Whether it’s darts, chess, or a card game, this phrase is used in hope by one of our kids after they’ve realised they could’ve made a better decision. They want a second chance at it.

    Jonah gets a second chance, which we read of in Jonah 3:1-2,

    Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’

    Notice it was not, “Jonah got himself together.” Nor was it, “Jonah decided it was time.” But it was for the second time, “…then word of the Lord came to Jonah.” God speaks again. God initiates again. The mission Jonah ran from the first time is offered again. There is no change to the mission. It’s the same city, the same message, and the same calling. And this time Jonah goes.

    Jonah walks into Ninevah and delivers the message that the Lord has given him. It’s only eight words long, “Forty more days and Ninevah will be overthrown.” That’s it. The entire sermon. No explanation. No illustration. No application. It is quite an amazing scene.

    The result of this message is that the city repents. The king gets off his throne and sits in dust. There is a decree issued for humans and animals to fast and cry out to God. The message of the Lord has had an impact on the city.

    And God relents.

    In contrast to Israel, God’s own people, here is a pagan city who turn toward Him. God’s own people continue to rebel and refuse to repent are outdone by the Ninevites.

    This passage reminds us that God is the God of second chances. There’s a second chance for Jonah, for Ninevah, and for us. The call God gives to us in our lives doesn’t expire the moment we fail to answer it. He calls again and again and again, offering us a second chance at life, love, and hope.

    It also challenges our expectation of who can be transformed through responding to the message of God. Ninevah was the last city anyone would expect to repent, but God is always at work in the places our human minds have given up on.

    The gift of the second chance is for us!

    For Reflection:

    1.     Is there an area of your own life where you need to receive God’s second chance? Are you open to accepting God’s invitation into what you may have been avoiding?

    2.     Is there a person or situation you have mentally written off? How does the repentance of Nineveh challenge that assumption?

    More Than: A Series in Jonah
    Part 1: More Than A Mission You Can Refuse
    Part 2: More Than Running Away
    Part 3: More Than A Prayer
    Part 4: More Than A Second Chance
    Part 5: More Than Anger
    Related: The Scandal of Grace